"The Owls Are Not What They Seem" A Twin Peaks Rewatch: Fire Walk With Me, Part Two

"The Owls Are Not What They Seem" A Twin Peaks Rewatch with the Theory in Mind: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Part Two "Twin Peaks"


The theory: Twin Peaks is the dream of William "Billy" Hastings, a serial killer. The result of his mother's abuse, at the hands of her father, Billy was abused by her in turn, keeping the cycle going. Playing with fire, as abused/neglected/antisocial children are prone to, he accidentally burned down the motel where he lived with his mother and grandfather/father, killing them. He was sent to live with his grandmother/great-grandmother, until she died too. Billy then went to live with his strict, born again uncle. In high school, Billy became obsessed with a schoolmate, the American Girl. He murdered her, the first in a string of victims, all similar in the way that they reminded him of his mother. To deal with his past and what he'd become, he constructed the world of Twin Peaks, allowing him to also "protect" and honor his mother, the woman he both loved and feared. Inside of the dream, Billy's family was represented by both the Hornes and the Lodge Spirits, while Billy's main avatar was our hero Dale Cooper. Inside of his dream, Billy sought to project his tragedy and sins onto his victim's family instead, which worked for a while. However, if the OG is a representation of how Billy got away with murder, the Return is how he was eventually discovered by the mother of his first victim, an act precipitated by his involvement with Betty, his final victim.


A longer essay on the theory: https://armsholdair.dreamwidth.org/7192.html


WARNING: A knowledge of the whole Twin Peaks series is needed for this, fittingly from A to Z and Z back to A.


-We start the Twin Peaks segment of FWWM appropriately with a shot of the Welcome to Twin Peaks sign. It is one year after Teresa's death.


- We are shown Laura walking down the sidewalk to school.


It must be mentioned how this right here is when the sequence with Phillip Jeffries at the FBI Headquarters was supposed to go, according to the script. Why MUST it be mentioned and not ignored? Because in The Return, when Mr. C and Phillip have their chat, it seems to be hinted that this is when it occurred too, in 1989, when Lynch had originally wanted to place it, before time restraints. So maybe, he intended to replace it there...we don't know for certain. We can only guess. But if it had...well Jeffries appearance would have happened simultaneously to Laura's appearance and that included Jeffries claim that this was all a dream. Which goes along with our suggestion that this is all being dreamt by Billy FOLLOWING the events of the original finale, just like Jeffries comes from then too. So, it can't be wholly trusted once again...It's effected by the whole Twin Peaks original series.


- Laura's walking to school, and picking Donna up at her house along the way. And it's hard not to notice the wig that they have poor Sheryl Lee wearing. Just as it's hard not to remember one poor fan, whom had been waiting for her big entrance, and then was horrified by that obvious wig. Why can't somebody go back and AI that thing?


- She stops in front of the Hayward house and...hey, what's that kind of sickly looking tree to Donna's left? Is that a sycamore? We have to question it, this being WILLIAM Hayward's house afterall.


- They walk to school and encounter Bobby and Mike, where the piece of dialogue is included "Mike is the man." Man is usually used in a derogatory way for the boss, but can also be used in respect. It was used for Joseph, when he was the viceroy of Egypt. Ben Horne had a book about Joseph and his brothers on his desk, when they arrested him for Laura's murder. But this is in reference to a Mike, whom shares the name of MIKE. In FWWM, MIKE seems to be in control and calling some of the shots. Is MIKE really the MAN? And does that indicate that Billy saw his uncle as being the man too, in whatever way that was?

This film displays MIKE possessing some sort of authority over BOB. We have previously theorized that Billy's uncle was the only one whom could have stopped Billy's father/grandfather from abusing Billy's mother.


- They reach the school, where Laura meets up with James, probably arranging a meeting later. She snorts cocaine in the bathroom. There's a shot of the Twin Peaks High School sign outside.

Okay, so this is where we theorize that Billy met American Girl: at high school. It's also where Laura's photo during the original series is shown: in the trophy case there. It will also be where Billy works as a principal later in his life.

But what is also important about this is its relation to when we earlier connected Chet's introduction corresponding to traumatized children and how that dealt with Teresa/Billy's mother's death happening during his childhood. Likewise, for Laura/American Girl's death, it mainly revolves around High School. Cooper interrogates several high school students and one even falls in love with him. That is because this, American Girl's murder happened when Billy was a teenager. It's similar to how the Return centers on adults, when Billy had grown into an adult and tried to kill his assistant Betty. By that time, Billy had been exposed to more modern influences, the reason why The Return features more modern touches mixed in with the vintage. Here, in his high school life, Billy is still mostly seen through his grandmother's influence, the reason why FWWM seems so retro for the time.


- Bobby enters the school but stops to kiss the glass in front of Laura's photo in the display case. He did infact love her, despite Cooper's claim he didn't, which could help accentuate how Billy, in his jealousy, discounted anyone but his own feelings for his victim.

Now the photo ISN'T the same one as the one seen in the series at the high school. That one will be at the Palmer place. Now why would Lynch make such an obvious mistake? It could be one, but it's odd. Or is there some clue in the fact that the home and school photos were mixed up? We reason that Billy and American Girl went to school together and that was when he became obsessed with her. Is there any insinuation here, something about their school and her home?


- Laura meets with James but she's pretty disparaging of everything, quite a far cry from the girl whom gave him half of the locket. She tells him not to hold on so tight because she's already gone, like a turkey in the corn.

She's referencing a song by Lightnin' Hopkins which has several connections. First are those found in the song title itself: corn being the garmonbozia (pain and sorrow). Then we have a man named Lightnin' performing it, and how that fits in with electricity, connected with the Lodge spirits and the flashing light of BOB. The song also references a grandmother and grandfather.

There is a hand, which looks like a turkey, heading into the black corn on Hawk's map. We linked the black corn (fertility, diseased, unnatural, death), in the previous entry, to Billy's perception of himself, and his birth, or his mother. One of the corn pieces on the map seems to be falling towards the turkey hand. Hands also connect to the shaking hands in Path to the Black Lodge.


- James tells her that she's not a turkey because they are one of the dumbest birds on earth, to which she goes "gobble, gobble, gobble" indicating her general lack of self esteem. Later when Bobby approaches her on the schoolyard, Laura insults Bobby's own intelligence, showing her throwing/projecting her own fears on to someone else to make herself feel better.

This is what Billy does: he cannot deal with his feelings so he puts them on to innocent people, just as the Palmers have the burden now of what really happened to the Hornes. Likewise, Billy, whom felt he possessed no control over the abuse that occurred to him, forces others to suffer, stealing, he believes their own control.


- When Bobby hints that when she wants him (for drugs) he might not be around and she wins him over with a smile.

Billy could see him mother as having the same quality of winning him over, despite her abusive tendencies. He could also see himself that way, for he can fool those around him when needed. He could also still see American Girl as having led him on too, and manipulated him.


- Bobby walks backwards into the school, a general theme of going back in time.


- Laura and Donna lie around the Hayward living room. A fire is burning in the fireplace here *cough* a "Billy's" home. Fire was synonymous with BOB. The only fire at the Palmers is when BOB/Leland is remembering Teresa's death. Teresa, we theorize, is really a stand-in for Audrey.

There's also a rabbit statue by the fire here. We've pointed out that there is a giant rabbit statue in Richard/Cooper and Carrie/Laura's Odessa Texas. It's name is Jack BEN Rabbit. Bobby and his own dad had an imaginary place called Jack Rabbit's Palace. Lucy and Hawk wondered if it was all about the bunnies.


- To go along with the earlier talk about Mike being the man, now, out of the blue, Donna wonders if Mike could ever write a poem.

We don't know if Mike ever did, but MIKE might have, the poem about the Magician and the Fire...the same one this film is named after.


- Now Donna, just as equally inexplicably asks Laura, "Do you think that if you were falling in space that you would slow down after a while or go faster and faster?

Laura responds, "Faster and faster. And for a long time, you wouldn't feel anything. And then you'd burst into fire. Forever. And the angels wouldn't help you. Because they've all gone away."

First to point out, is how you can hear playing faintly, as Laura references the angels, strains of "The Voice of Love". This will repeat when she turns to the angel picture in her bedroom, after Leland has told her goodnight and she asks if it's true he's BOB. It's all foreshadowing the final sequence of the film.

Next we have the fact that it is Dale Cooper, at the beginning of Part 3, whom we see falling faster and faster through space until he hits the Mansion Room on the Purple Sea. This is the place where he enters through the window, just like BOB was known to do, and finds Naido in a room with a 15, and American Girl in a room (possibly the same at an earlier time) with a 3. We argue that it was never Laura whom was falling faster and faster through space and in real threat of bursting into fire...it was always Cooper. Or rather Billy. We may not see the bursting into fire bit, but when Cooper hits the mansion room box, it is in effect him bursting into flames. Because the box holds the memories of the real people he murdered, which in effect was equal to bursting into fire. Notice too, how inside of the mansion rooms the fireplace is lit. They, plus the fires at Sylvia's and Audrey Horne's places, are two of the only instances of fire inside of Twin Peaks. Which might actually hint that in Mansion Room number 1 & 2 are Billy's mother and grandmother actually and NOT his mother and father/grandfather as theorized earlier. Maybe there is no room saved for the father he hated inside of Billy's mind. Maybe he's still just BOB and he has the Convenience Store.

Overall, Billy probably should have appealed to his better angels, as Abraham Lincoln once said.

When Cooper goes to live at the Jones', Sonny Jim's bedroom features space motifs. We theorize that this is another representation of Billy's younger self. So the space aspects belong to him again more than Laura.

Donna having broached the subject, along with the one about Mike writing a poem, becomes relevant because this is the house of her father, whom just happens to be a Billy too.


- Laura returns home and retrieves her secret diary from behind her bedroom's dresser.

Okay, note how very much unlike a teenager-from-the-late-1980s-bedroom this bedroom actually is. No posters, very little trends of the time. It's like an adult's guest bedroom. That's still because Billy, whom lived at a hotel, then with his grandmother and finally with a strict uncle didn't really know what a regular teenager's bedroom looked like! He had a tendency to project him and his family onto others, leaving details like this, Laura's bedroom, difficult to reconcile with what we know about the actual time and regular people.

Lou Ming's Find Laura theory suggested that an emblem on the dresser resembled an owl. It very well could. But while he suggested that Laura saw it during her abuse, and it formed the basis for the owl motif, we argue that it is the truth about the Hornes once again leaking into Billy's dream, and that it is important that the diary is placed behind it perhaps. There's always been something off about it. If that is supposed to resemble an owl, we point out the horns it seems to possess, emphasizing that feature which ties it to Audrey's family: Great HORNEd Owls. Laura is "dressing" from the owls/Audrey's wardrobe not her own.

The secret diary is also hidden behind the dresser with that owl like emblem. Now during our analysis of the series seen through this theory's eyes, we already posited that the diary seemed "manufactured" in the second season, directly following Audrey being in a sexually frightening situation with her father, Ben. We suspect the diary existed as more or less Billy projecting/planting more of his family's trauma onto another family instead. That this diary seemed to appear as Audrey and Ben were doing their "dance" at Jack's, also when Cooper was shot and he saw the Giant, could go hand in hand with the Giant's clue "The owls are not what they seem." Which we think meant that the HORNES of the GREAT Northern (Great HORNEd owls) weren't what they seemed. The emblem and the diary being situated together could further strengthen the theory.


- Laura starts flipping through the diary. That's obviously not Jennifer Lynch's diary. That thing is too thin and the writing too large. Plus, the page we see isn't in the published diary. We could use JL's version of the diary for this theory (it flat out states that Laura was like Audrey) but we refuse to do so because it remains too problematic a material to reconcile with the series itself. It's almost like fanfic more than canon.


- Laura notes that pages have been ripped out, she immediately flees to Harold Smith's place, in a car that, once again, seems out of date.


- Harold's place obviously is now more focused on his love of books, Lynch emphasizing this above the plants.

Billy loves his stories too. Harold Smith, someone similar to him, is living in one of them, and he doesn't even realize it.


- Laura comes in and shows Harold the violated diary. He asks who would do it, but when she says BOB, he says BOB isn't real, and she retaliates that there are pages torn out and that is real.

We don't know what Laura told Harold about BOB and what he suspects. He seems to take a more realistic viewpoint, however, while Laura maintains that BOB is real.


- Laura now argues about her tormentor's existence: "Bob is real. He's been having me since I was 12."

We already went through the peculiar specifics about this. 12 is a somewhat strange age for BOB or Leland to have targeted Laura for abuse, especially if Leland had been abused by a male perpetrator. A 12 year old girl still looks like a child and not an adult woman. And if BOB or Leland was after someone who looked like a child, why not start the abuse earlier? It seems more informed by Lolita than truth. Or it might have more, we argue, to do with Billy and his creation of BOB than Laura. At the Twin Peaks Savings and Loan, an old woman sat sleeping in front of a new account cabinet listing 1985. This would have corresponded with Billy Hastings being 12. We suspect it might be symbolic that his grandmother died when he was 12. Have to also state that amongst Hastings information included on Mr. C/Dale's arrest report, his birthday being 1973, was one of the facts. 1985 was also the year of the Cooper/Caroline/Windom Pittsburgh tragedy, which BOB knew all about. We previously argued Windom as an earlier draft of the surrogate BOB/father figure inside of Billy's mind.


- Laura says, "And the diary was hidden too well. There is no other person who could've known where it was."

Umm...Billy, the dreamer and writer of the story, and Laura, would likely know. Also, Dale will soon show an uncanny ability to know just what Laura is doing. He'd know. But they are both BOB too, so Laura is right.


- Now she also reveals, "He comes in through my window at night."

Dale does that same thing when he enters the Mansion Room.


- Laura restates that BOB is real and that he's getting to know her now. He speaks to her. An obviously uncomfortable Harold asks what he says, and Laura reveals, "He says he wants to be me or he'll kill me."

So this lays the groundwork for BOB's wish to possess Laura. But we argue it was a different sort of possession for Billy's reality. Like Billy's father/grandfather seemed to *own* Billy's mother, controlling her movements and actions, seeing her as a POSSESSION, Billy wished to hold the same power over American Girl, a girl he saw being very much like his mother. This is the truth behind what Billy is reenvisioning for his dream.


- Suddenly a feeling seems to come over Laura, one of BOB, to prove her words to the doubtful Harold. She says "Fire Walk With Me" and her face changes color as she repeats the word, "Me."

We reason that the phrase "Fire walk with me" is the invitation given to BOB by a perspective host: the fire walking with them. Once again, for Billy, this was something more linked to his having given himself over to the fire. He might have believed it allowed him to better see and navigate through the pain he was dealing with.

Laura's face changed to how Windom's looked in the finale, which echoed the pool of oil at Glastonbury Grove, which was a gateway to the Lodge. However, Laura's mouth is red, like the curtains. This indicates that, in that moment, she would have been open for possession. She is also frightening Harold. BOB uses her father's own fear (the key to the Lodge) to open the entrance at Glastonbury Grove at the end of this film.


- After she is back to normal, Laura clings to Harold and says "Oh, the trees, the trees" referencing the sycamores at Glastonbury Grove we surmise.

Glastonbury Grove was in Ghostwood. We've argued that the forest represented Audrey and the threat to it, Ghostwood Development was infact her father's abuse. The trees within it could be the different parties involved.


- Laura beseeches Harold to hide the diary because he made her write it all down and BOB doesn't know about him.

Harold, a lover of stories like Billy, made Laura write down her own story, keeping with his living novel and further making it seem less like JL's account where Laura received it as a birthday present from her family.

Now, does Harold, a horticulturist, having made Laura keep the diary give further indication that it was planted inside the dreamer's narrative?

BOB not knowing about Harold gives a reason why Laura wasn't possessed even though she said the invitation for possession.


- Laura feel's Harold's forehead, as if to see if he's "on fire" and then kisses him, until she leaves crying, saying she doesn't know when she can come back. Maybe never. We don't believe she did. Which makes the diary still more seem like a convenient plot device for Billy then something that makes logical sense.


- We cut to the ceiling fan at the Palmers and a shot of Laura standing beneath it. There seems to be the flashes of static/electricity, plus the BOB light flashes, as BOB tells Laura, "I want to taste through your mouth" and Laura says "No" even while she seems in heat.

Laura associates the fan with BOB's visitations. The flashes of static/electricity could be Billy's influence/presence as the dreamer. BOB indicates he wants to be Laura Palmer, and interestingly, Carrie, in Part 18, shows a preoccupation on what her and Richard/Cooper are going to eat. We'll theorize Carrie is a Laura possessed by BOB.


- The curtains from the Red Room appear and fade into the next scene, imposed over Cooper and foreshadowing his next scene walking through them in the Red Room during Laura's dream. We think this might further imply that, when the Arm and BOB went into the Red Room during the Convenience Store meeting, they found Cooper there.


- Cooper tells Albert that lately he has been filled with the knowledge that the killer will strike and he is powerless to stop it.

No, duh. As Billy's favorite avatar, sure he'd have that feeling.


- Albert asks for more info, but all that Cooper gives him can fit half the schoolgirls in America. What is more inexplicable is how Dale knows she is preparing a large quantity of food, since Laura is at the Double R, readying to deliver food for Meals on Wheels.

Once more, Cooper knows this through his link to the dreamer. And again this centers around food, "I want to taste through your mouth." However, Laura, here, is helping to feed others, rather than herself.


- Shelly is forced to help Laura because Heidi has a bloody nose. There's the nose again. Soon Laura will see the grandson with his mask with its own prominent nose.


- While putting the meals in the trunk, Laura looks to see, standing on the street before a railroad crossing, the grandmother and grandson. Static/electricity flashes over them. The boy is wearing the mask, just as we saw him last time, and he also appears to be holding something similar to what the Jumping Man was holding. The grandmother looks almost like she is in funeral garb. The grandmother motions Laura towards her.

Interesting for FWWM, the grandson wears a tie, whereas in the series it was a bowtie...does it have anything to do with Laura's death? Why does this more resemble Cooper's dark suit? No. Actually it looks exactly like Coop's suit.

The railway crossing invokes the railroad car where Laura dies. We still contend that the real Laura, American Girl, was murdered in her bedroom. The abandoned train car, was used by Billy to keep us off track.

The electricity/static is the dreamer and his influence.


- Laura goes towards the grandmother and grandson, the former of which hands her a painting of a wall with a door. She tells Laura that it would look nice on her wall.

The room, we will see in The Return and it is the space above the Convenience Store which leads to the Dutchman's. The wallpaper resembles One-Eyed Jack's.

We believe that this painting is appropriate to Laura since she is the door that led Billy to his dream of Twin Peaks.


- The grandson whispers to Laura, "The man behind the mask is looking for the book with the pages torn out." He then relates his movements, as the camera cuts to a shot of his nose.

Now as with Chet and Sam's confusion over "wearing a sour face," BOB wears his host's face. We also strongly believe that this grandson is a childhood incarnation of Billy...whom is BOB in a way. So the *man* behind the *boy's* mask is BOB too. But Billy also hides behind BOB...So this remark works on several different levels for this theory and scene.


- Laura runs to tell Shelly she can't do the Meals on Wheels, looking once to find the grandmother and grandson walking away together.


- Laura runs home, only to find the ceiling fan on and BOB looking behind the dresser in her bedroom for the diary.

To go along with the potential owl on it, the word "dresser" is interesting since Laura/Carrie too will whisper to Dale something that deals with how he infact dresses.

Meanwhile, Laura's bedroom door knob resembles a diamond. Teresa worked out of the Red Diamond City Motel. Audrey was the Queen of Diamonds. Both women were shown with ice, a common slang term for diamonds.


- Laura screams and there is an image of BOB's mouth, cast in blue, as if he is feeding on her fear. Once again, this is fear not pain and sorrow.


- Laura runs out of the house, but stays by the hedge to see who leaves it To her horror, it is her father. Leland gets in his convertible and drives away, as Laura repeats over and over again, "It's not him." The camera finds the painting of the door the grandmother gave her, lying on the grass.

Laura's reaction is so horrified; she never suspected her father before. It's almost like he was the one person she never did suspect! This dissuades us from the common belief that Laura was hiding the truth from herself or had partly invented BOB. If she had, there would reasonably still be some negative feelings for Leland present. Most abuse victims can't help but feel anger, hatred, fear etc... for their abuser. But Laura seems more confused and traumatized that it's Leland, never seemingly conflicted in her opinion of him. Once again, Audrey Horne's complicated feelings for her own father seem more in line with the varied emotions that someone being betrayed by someone they loved and trusted would feel. The incestuous abuse story seems more imposed on Laura and Leland.


- Laura rushes to Donna at the Hayward house, wanting to know if she is her friend, which Donna says she is.

This scene will turn up reversed and zoomed in for The Return, when Cole has a vision of Laura at his door. At this stage, Cole had just finished drawing a buck filled with holes. We suggest that bucks are associated with Billy. Is there still some connection between Laura and Billy? She's meant to be a reworking/substitute for his victim, American Girl, but does that also make her part Billy? If Laura is crying over finding out her father is BOB here, if we reverse it, for Part 10, can we link it to how Billy felt about his MOTHER, whom we believe abused him and is Judy? Infact, can Mr. C's quest to find Judy directly be the echo/truth behind Laura's search for who BOB is? Was this all just another projection Billy performed? Is this why the mother calling out here for the child is what distresses them so terribly?


- When Laura gets home, BOB/Leland is at the dinner table waiting for her. He calls her into the dining room, tells her to sit down and asks various questions, the most interesting of which, to the theme, is "Are you hungry?"

People have difficulty in telling a BOB controlled Leland from Leland, when they don't see Frank Silva we suspect. But Ray Wise conveyed definite differences, and it's obvious from the dark undertones in his voice, that this is BOB. Plus that question if Laura is hungry, screams it. Who was it whom earlier said they wanted to taste through her mouth? BOB. So this is fairly easily discerned. Another telling fact, once you've seen the Missing Pieces, is how in an earlier supper scene, Leland was hungry but not waiting at the table. Even when Laura was sitting there waiting, he wasn't there. He couldn't care less, it seemed about bothering or fawning over his daughter, showing the difference between BOB and Leland even more.

Interesting to note, there is a banker's lamp behind Laura in this scene. Ben Horne had a banker's lamp. Lamps provide illumination.


- BOB/Leland sees the divided heart necklace on Laura's chest and becomes jealous. He devises a way to be nearer to it and the wearer by accusing Laura of not washing her hands, even though he was the one whom ordered her to sit before she had.

So, we notice that there is a theme of jewelry enraging BOB, the necklace, MIKE's ring. We still wonder if Billy held bad associations with his mother and a piece of jewelry (from his uncle?) and American Girl with her own (from her real boyfriend?).


- BOB/Leland takes Laura's hands and remarks how filthy they are, pointing out the supposed dirt beneath the nail of her left ring finger.

Now that is where BOB places the letters of his name. It's also what Cole will refer to as the spiritual mound. In the OG series, we pointed out how there was a scene of Ben and his father both shoveling dirt at the groundbreaking (a destruction of nature) for the Great Northern, the father passing the shovel to the son. We theorize this truly symbolized the passing on of the cycle of abuse within a family, and it happened between the Hornes not the Palmers. The episode where the scene was shown, featured it once again during the credits, the only time this replaced Laura's image in an episode not directed by David Lynch. That's pretty telling. Ben likewise referred to himself as dirt once. Now BOB/Leland is threatening Laura with dirt and that doesn't seem coincidental. Even the trailer where the grandson and grandmother were staying had dirt beneath it and Chet's car seemed covered in it.

In comparison, Garland, in his instructions for visiting Jack Rabbit's Palace, instructed placing some soil from it in the pocket before leaving. This was the still natural preserved place where Garland played with his son. A definite difference can be made between a father/son relationship which harmed nature, Ben and his father, and one which preserved it, Garland and Bobby.


- Sarah comes in and fearfully asks what Leland's doing. He mentions Laura's dirty hands again. BOB/Leland then takes the necklace and asks who gave it to Laura as the poor girl looks shocked and scared. He asks if a lover gave it to her, as Sarah protests they don't call them lovers in high school. BOB/Leland knows Bobby didn't give it to her, and when Sarah states to stop because Laura doesn't like it, BOB/Leland asks her how she knows what Laura likes. Finally Sarah's shriek to stop it works and BOB/Leland goes back to his chair.

Now, what's going on with that necklace? We clearly saw James remembering that Laura gave it to him and not the other way around. We all in all though have a very disturbing scene at the table, where both Laura and Sarah are acting like they've never seen Leland acting this way before...which you think might have happened in the 5-6 years if Leland really had been abusing Laura. It certainly would have made Laura consider the possibility that her father was BOB. But this seems new to both daughter and mother. Sarah also does scream to stop it. Would she really have let 5-6 years pass without a similar reaction?

BOB's obsession with the necklace still represents that Billy might have also seen American Girl with one and it led to his killing her over it in jealousy.


- BOB/Leland rebuffs Sarah's statement that they are all going to eat with the demand that Laura washes her hands first, which she does, crying before the bathroom sink's mirror.

Kind of another parallel here with Mr. C looking in his bathroom mirror at the Great Northern, as he procrastinated brushing his teeth, all while BOB was in him.


- Laura sits deep in thought at a desk in her bedroom, wearing an all black shirt, which was neither what she was wearing at dinner, nor is her bedclothes. It's 10:30.

Okay, bit of hidden importance here, thanks to the detective work of the people over at Twin Peaks Blog, it was discovered that the book Laura is reading from is "The Home University Bookshelf, Volume 5: Famous Stories and Verse”. It contains mainly stories, fairy tales and verse and is kind of an older book, published 1927, for the Twin Peaks high school to be giving its students to read. It's also for children, it even having a picture of "Hey, Diddle Diddle" on the inside cover, with every character included, save the cow which seems to be a pig. You might recall that Mr. C sent a message "The cow jumped over the moon" while being at Warden Murphy's prison. Other books published by this company are: “Boys and Girls Bookshelf,” copyright 1912, 1915, 1920; “Young Folks Treasure,” copyright 1909, 1917, 1919; “Father and Son Library,” copyright 1921; “Modern Boy Activity,” copyright 1921, 1923; “The Mother’s Book,” copyright 1919; “The Child Welfare Manual,” copyright 1916; “The Home Kindergarten Manual,” copyright 1921; and “Bible Stories and Character Building,”

Hmm...Father and Son Library? Modern Boy Activity? The Mother's Book? Child Welfare? Something is up. But it seems more to do with a boy...could this book have been at Billy's grandmother's place? Afterall, in Coma, the grandmother had some books lying about, most houses do.

What else proves interesting about this rather strange textbook a 17 year old girl in 1989 has supposedly been given?

Well, she's reading William M. Thackeray’s “The Rose and the Ring." WILLIAM. ROSE. RING. In that story, a boy gets his mother's ring and gives it to the cousin he fancies and it makes her appear lovelier than she truly is. The rose has the same effect. So we have a story by a William, involving a rose and a ring making people see the owners as something they are not. Which is what Billy does when he sees certain women as his mother. The ring having belonged to the boy's mother is also incredibly important. That echoes how in the Autobiography for Cooper, it states his ring belonged to his mother and she received it from her father. We don't take that book as canon either btw, but Lynch supposedly had some input in it.

- In the Palmers bedroom, as Sarah sits in front of a mirror, we see Leland's back reflected behind her. Beside her sits an owl lamp.

Mirrors are a big thing in Twin Peaks. And look at that owl lamp, in the Palmer bedroom, providing some light just like the bankers lamp, similar to Benjamin Horne's, did in the dining room. The Hornes were the owls. If we wish for enlightenment to the secrets of Twin Peaks, we must look to them.


-BOB/Leland rocks back and forth, until he suddenly stops. Suddenly his face goes blank, exhaling as if something has left him. His face contorts and he starts crying. Sarah, hearing this, rises from the nightstand and goes to her husband.

This is very obviously BOB leaving Leland, and the man coming back into possession of himself. He starts crying most probably because he feels something bad has happened, guilt for something maybe, but doesn't know what, BOB having left holes in him. With these missing lapses of time, Leland might also fear he is losing his mind.


- Leland enters Laura's bedroom and takes her hand. She is obviously frightened until he tells her that he loves her and seems just like Leland again, only very sad. Laura knows it's her dad and he kisses her forehead before saying "Goodnight Princess".

This is a very sweet scene. Laura clearly loses her fear and recognizes her father here and not BOB. Also Leland is purely just a loving father. If this was truly a depiction of an abuser, it would be difficult for the man to enter his daughter's bedroom this late and not use it for his own perversions. But Leland holds no such feelings for Laura, which she can sense.

Another thing is that sweet kiss to the forehead...Ben gave Audrey a similar kiss during "On the Wings of Love" and we believe it might connect to this scene and moment, because Ben and Audrey's burden is now placed on Leland and Laura, and they are both clearly struggling with it and confused throughout the film, probably because it doesn't belong to them. Leland even calling Laura "Princess" seems to involve Ben and Audrey...didn't the Twin Peaks card set say that was Audrey's nickname?


- Laura watches Leland leave, and he looks so sad still. She's touched still by what just happened, obviously loving her father a great deal and holding the hand he touched to her heart. She turns, tears in her eyes, and asks in a whisper to her painting of an angel, "Is it true?" Something takes over Laura as she stares at the painting, then she snaps out of it, remembering the picture the grandmother gave her.

Very important. When Laura asks the angel if it's true that her father is BOB, she suddenly becomes hypnotized by the painting. Just as when she talked of angels with Donna, strains of "The Voice of Love" plays and Lynch focuses on the Angel's wings. This will come back at the end of the film. When the angel enters the Red Room, the same song will fully play as, once again, Lynch begins by centering on the wings.

We theorize here, that the angel returning actually means something drastically different than most people interpret. We think the angel returning actually showed Laura that the answer to her question was, no, it wasn't her father. That is why, at the end of the film, she smiles and laughs in a joy that also seems very much like relief, bringing the hand she believed her father had said was dirty to her heart. She sees past Billy's dream and experiences the knowledge of something that he cannot share: her father never hurt her. The ring might help bring her to this realization.

The painting of the angel also seems to go along with the general theme of food, hunger and appetite that permeates the series: at a table, several children gather, anxiously waiting, as the angel prepares to feed them. That was earlier what Laura was trying to do with Meals on Wheels.

To go with the centering on the Angel's wings, we repeat that the episode where Ben kissed Audrey's forehead was called "On the Wings of Love."


- Having retrieved the painting and placed it on her wall, beside the angel painting, Laura goes to sleep in a negligee similar to what Audrey wore at One-Eyed Jack's, but doesn't look like anything a high school girl would wear to bed.


- Laura falls asleep, looking at the door picture. She enters the painting, going through the door. She finds the grandmother waiting on the other side and pointing her through another door. The first thing practically seen upon entering this door is a shadow of the grandson on the wall. Then we find him standing in the darkness at one end of the room. He snaps his fingers and light appears, and yet it looks like the light cast by a fire. This seems to take Laura, or her vision, to the Red Room, the same shot of the curtains seen once again.

This is hammering home how Laura is the door. We don't see her, but rather through her eyes as she walks through them.

Integral how we see the grandson's shadow first, just like Dale met his shadow self in the series finale which preceded this. Then we see the boy standing in the darkness..."Through the darkness of Future Past the Magician longs to see." Now the boy was supposed to hold his hands up and a RING of fire was to appear which led to the Red Room, but the effect didn't work. Lynch seemed to substitute it with the finger snap, which we saw both Dale and Leland do in Episode #2 and the boy during his first appearance. It seems to summon fire..."One chants out between two worlds, Fire Walk With Me." This is how the boy saw through the darkness: by playing with the fire.

This is Billy, the dreamer. We can also see why he made Leland know BOB when he was just a little boy too, this falling into his habit of projection. Plus his father/grandfather was abused by his own father when he was just a little boy.

That shot of the curtains appearing is another hint that what BOB showed MIKE in the Red Room, and what Jeffries might have also seen there, was Cooper.


- On the gold and black pedestal seen in the Red Room, during the finale, sits the green ring with the Owl Cave Symbol. This is Teresa's (Billy's substitution for his dead mother) ring.


- Cooper, from the second season finale, walks through the curtain to find the Arm waiting by the ring and the pedestal.

Question. Does it going from the grandson to Cooper, them both wearing the same clothing, indicate further that they are also the same? Billy and his avatar?


- The Arm asks Dale if he knows who he is and then tells him he is the Arm, the first Dale learned this. The Arm then says he sounds like the whooping sound the waiter made and the utility pole gave off in direction of the grandson's trailer. The Arm goes to the table and picks up the ring, holding it up for Laura, while looking at Dale almost nervously. Cooper looks at Laura and says, "Don't take the ring, Laura...don't take the ring."

This is what struck us about this scene viewed through this theory: the Arm offers Laura the ring without giving her any sort of advice. It is Cooper, on the other hand, whom outright tells her not to take it. One allows Laura the freedom of choice...the other tries to steal her autonomy. And isn't that what BOB was doing? Didn't he wish to control her too? Infact, BOB doesn't want Laura to have the ring...so Cooper and he are on the same page and practically the same impetus here...which goes along perfectly with the belief that both of them are the same...both are Billy.


- Cut to Laura in her bed, hearing Sarah's muffled call for her. She turns over holding her arm because it has gone numb, her hand clenching something. Cut to another shot of a door, this time her own. Laura looks back to find Annie lying in her bed, bloody, looking dead and wearing Caroline's dress from the OG series' finale. Annie tells her her name is Annie and she's been with Laura and Dale. She adds that the good Dale is in the Lodge and can't leave and for her to write it in her diary, before returning to a comatose/lifeless state.

Annie appearing in Caroline's dress makes this more viable to be Dale Cooper's dream. Even in Part 17, when Laura meets Dale, she'll tell him, "I've seen you in a dream. In a dream." Her repetition can literally make it read that she saw him in her dream while someone dreamt her dreaming seeing him. Why Laura would dream Annie in Caroline's dress is confusing, since that was Cooper's personal hang-up about Annie: he couldn't separate her from the love of his life inside of his mind. It's the same problem Billy faces, when he confuses his victims with his mother. That reflects in this sequence too, since we theorize both women are victims of Cooper/BOB/Billy and are in the same bed, both because of the inability for someone to separate individuals.

Annie is Caroline's dress also illustrates how Billy forces other people to wear things that belonged to another, like the earlier stated belief (with the dresser) that Laura was being forced to wear Audrey's tragedy. As we've already mentioned before, Laura's nightgown here resembles the one Audrey wore at One-Eyed Jack's, making both she and Annie forced to wear other women's clothing.

Interesting too, how Annie is in that fugue state and exists only to give a warning for Dale's safety, in non Lodgespeak which only Cooper himself seemed able to manage. We suspect that helps showcase the shell that Billy masks his victims inside within his dream, turning them from brunettes to blondes to help protect him from the truth. Annie, a blonde, is only a husk, it appears, her sole purpose to help protect/save Dale. It all comes back to the wearing of a face, the first bit of explanation Chet and Sam had about the coding of Lil.

Okay, so both Dale and Annie are new to Laura's dream, intruders in a way, if we are to take this as happening after Laura's original demise.


- Laura hears the muffled cry again and we once more see the door, but when she looks back, Annie is gone. Furthermore, she opens her hand to find the Owl Cave ring there, which badly scares her.

Hard not to think of the person whom laughed over Laura being more afraid of the bloody, stranger no longer lying in her bed than her appearing there in the first place.

Is Laura's fear of the ring mostly due to the advice of Cooper and the appearance of Annie instructions about a GOOD Dale being trapped in the Lodge? Would she have been more receptive to it without this future interference?


- Laura hears her mother calling again and goes to the door. She opens it, standing in the doorway, to see the top of the stairs and nobody there, but this harkens to Sarah running up the stairs to find the empty bedroom during the Pilot. As if she gets a feeling, Laura turns and looks back into her bedroom, at the painting the grandmother gave her. She sees herself standing in the doorway now, looking back. Her shadow is on the wall, similar to how the grandson's shadow was previously seen on the wall. Now Laura's in the painting, standing in the doorway and looking down at her bedroom and the image of herself sleeping peacefully in her bed.

Once again we have the strong connection between Laura and doors. We argue that Laura is the doorway that led Billy to his dream of Twin Peaks and the various characters and stories he found there.

We can equally theorize that the dream is trying to offer the ring to Laura, and that she should take it so she will be at peace like she sees herself in her bed.

There's a strange other possibility here though. That, if Laura has entered the painting, and sees herself, that perhaps, the grandson once looked at a painting of her and longed to enter her world. This goes along with the theory that Laura is the door. It is possible that Billy, while living with his grandmother above the Convenience Store, equally dreamt of Laura Palmer, and this allowed him entrance to her world? On a wall, was there a painting of someone whom resembled her sleeping, and the boy used to look at it?

Laura, meanwhile, enters his "reality": the Red Room and its connecting places, like we see throughout the whole of Twin Peaks.

We can also explore another possibility, that Laura, lying in her bed as her mother calls for her on the morning of her death, plus the appearance of the bloody, lifeless Annie having lain there too, goes along with the theory that Billy infact murdered her true self, American Girl, in her bedroom. That the mother, in actuality, called for her daughter and went into the bedroom only to discover her dead body, the whole bit about the train car and trip down the river to Blue Pine Lodge, a fantasy.


- Laura wakes up, without the ring, her palm empty. She looks at the painting on her wall in fear, eventually placing it face down on the desk. We never see it again, and we presume she threw it out.

Laura is now frightened of the ring and the painting, and we theorize that this had a direct influence on the past. Without Cooper and Annie, she would have taken it. With their presence she did not, and this path for her accepting it is now blocked, the "past" now altered.